about to send to Sicily. Alcibiades also urgently advised the
fortification of Decelea, and a vigorous prosecution of the war. But
the Lacedaemonians derived most encouragement from the belief that
Athens, with two wars on her hands, against themselves and against the
Siceliots, would be more easy to subdue, and from the conviction
that she had been the first to infringe the truce. In the former
war, they considered, the offence had been more on their own side,
both on account of the entrance of the Thebans into Plataea in time of
peace, and also of their own refusal to listen to the Athenian offer
of arbitration, in spite of the clause in the former treaty that where
arbitration should be offered there should be no appeal to arms. For
this reason they thought that they deserved their misfortunes, and
took to heart seriously the disaster at Pylos and whatever else had
befallen them. But when, besides the ravages from Pylos, which went on
without any intermission, the thirty Athenian ships came out from
Argos and wasted part of Epidaurus, Prasiae, and other places; when
upon every dispute that arose as to the interpretation of any doubtful
point in the treaty, their own offers of arbitration were always
rejected by the Athenians, the Lacedaemonians at length decided that
Athens had now committed the very same offence as they had before
done, and had become the guilty party; and they began to be full of
ardour for the war. They spent this winter in sending round to their
allies for iron, and in getting ready the other implements for
building their fort; and meanwhile began raising at home, and also
by forced requisitions in the rest of Peloponnese, a force to be
sent out in the merchantmen to their allies in Sicily. Winter thus
ended, and with it the eighteenth year of this war of which Thucydides
is the historian.
In the first days of the spring following, at an earlier period than
usual, the Lacedaemonians and their allies invaded Attica, under the
command of Agis, son of Archidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians. They
began by devastating the parts bordering upon the plain, and next
proceeded to fortify Decelea, dividing the work among the different
cities. Decelea is about thirteen or fourteen miles from the city of
Athens, and the same distance or not much further from Boeotia; and
the fort was meant to annoy the plain and the richest parts of the
country, being in sight of Athens. While the Peloponnesians and
their allies in Attica were engaged in the work of fortification,
their countrymen at home sent off, at about the same time, the heavy
infantry in the merchant vessels to Sicily; the Lacedaemonians
furnishing a picked force of Helots and Neodamodes (or freedmen),
six hundred heavy infantry in all, under the command of Eccritus, a
Spartan; and the Boeotians three hundred heavy infantry, commanded
by two Thebans, Xenon and Nicon, and by Hegesander, a Thespian.
These were among the first to put out into the open sea, starting from
Taenarus in Laconia. Not long after their departure the Corinthians
sent off a force of five hundred heavy infantry, consisting partly
of men from Corinth itself, and partly of Arcadian mercenaries, placed
under the command of Alexarchus, a Corinthian. The Sicyonians also
sent off two hundred heavy infantry at same time as the Corinthians,
under the command of Sargeus, a Sicyonian. Meantime the
five-and-twenty vessels manned by Corinth during the winter lay
confronting the twenty Athenian ships at Naupactus until the heavy
infantry in the merchantmen were fairly on their way from Peloponnese;
thus fulfilling the object for which they had been manned
originally, which was to divert the attention of the Athenians from
the merchantmen to the galleys.
During this time the Athenians were not idle. Simultaneously with
the fortification of Decelea, at the very beginning of spring, they
sent thirty ships round Peloponnese, under Charicles, son of
Apollodorus, with instructions to call at Argos and demand a force
of their heavy infantry for the fleet, agreeably to the alliance. At
the same time they dispatched Demosthenes to Sicily, as they had
intended, with sixty Athenian and five Chian vessels, twelve hundred